Monday, September 24, 2018

619 - Killing the Law


Spirituality Column #619
September 25, 2018
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Killing the Law
By Bob Walters

So often we go barreling through the New Testament – especially the writings of Paul – looking furiously for rules to follow or rules to enforce.

But if you want rules to follow, read the Old Testament; it has plenty of them, in toto known as “The Law.”  One might also notice, reading carefully, that the Law communicated through Moses applies only to the Jews.  Other nations, cultures, and civilizations also had “laws,” obviously, but “The Law” wasn’t for the Babylonians, Philistines, Samaritans, Greeks, Asians, or, moving forward, Christians.  Just Jews.

What the Old Testament also has is a whole lot of looking ahead – i.e., prophecy – to a specific person who not only fulfills the Law where the Jews are concerned but also sets the standard of salvation for all mankind: the coming person of Jesus Christ.

Christianity – too often these days – looks none-too-inviting to the outside world especially when our too-common Christian nature seeks to “lay down the law!” in a wrathful and righteous way against an already broken, hurting, and lost world.  End-to-end, the New Testament truly lays out a new covenant of faith in Christ offering eternal freedom from our sins, a divine covering of peace and strength, and the final absolute righteousness of God the Father of Jesus Christ.  Am I righteous? Are you? No and no … but faith in Jesus places us within the righteousness of the Father.  I’ll take it.

Some folks simply don’t buy into the mystery that is divine love in Christ.  Others avoid the seeming encumbrance of “having to behave” in a “Christian” way.  Others pass the whole notion off as a giant exercise in holier-than-thou hypocrisy.  The church too often is seen in worldly terms of time, money, rules, obligations, and restrictions.

These views are not weaknesses of Christianity, but weaknesses of the world.  Christianity, like Chesterton says, “is hard.” Not because it is so complex, but because it is so simple.  It’s not an endless list of rules that condemn us; it is a short list of commands that save us: have faith in Jesus, love God, love others as yourself, love sacrificially, and understand that the goal of life is not my happiness but God’s glory.

Really, there should be no “outsiders”; not if Jesus “came for all.”  But the world can’t “see” Jesus, it loves to ask God for stuff, it believes “Me first” is the correct cosmic order, that “What’s in it for me?” is the correct cosmic question, and – even where it believes God exists – believes it is nonetheless free to rewrite life’s basic propositions regarding sex, family, community, responsibility, and common sense.  It stays outside.

The craziest thing about Christ is His teaching that our love and God’s glory must overcome our human self-interest.  In so doing, we do not lose our freedom; instead our love becomes our joy and Christ becomes an encourager, a refuge, and a promise.  Jesus can rule our new, free lives because the Law’s grip died with Him on the cross.

So read the New Testament not as a rulebook but as a new offering of freedom.  The Law was about control and condemnation; Jesus is about freedom and forgiveness.

The best rules are the ones you don’t notice you’re following.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) reads the Old Testament not to follow its rules but to follow its road to Christ.

Monday, September 17, 2018

618 - Forget Me Not


Spirituality Column #618
September 18, 2018
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Forget Me Not
By Bob Walters

Do you ever forget that you are married? That you have children?  Parents?  A family?  That you have a job, a home, a car, a community, and a life?

Individually we may have all or some or – we may imagine – none of the above, but there are basics in the life of each one of us that we don’t and can’t forget.  So how illogical it is that we could ever forget about the author of all life, Jesus.  Why is it that Jesus had to tell His disciples at the last supper – and by extension tell every Christian in every communion – “Do this in remembrance of me”? (Luke 22:19)

Maybe the answer is: because we are free to forget Him.  After all, true love cannot be coerced: it is voluntary; a free act of the will.  And more of the answer is, Jesus knows how important it is to each of us to know we are loved, and He wants us to remember that above all. It is a comfort beyond all imagining to know salvation in Christ.

Yet we must also remember that the enormity of God’s love is more than an activator of our comfort and spiritual peace; Jesus is the one great and supreme, flesh and blood – bread and cup – example of God’s glory.  In remembering Jesus we remember His lesson of love, of sacrifice, of humility, of loving our enemies, and of our own Creation in the image of God.  Jesus did all that, and yet sometimes we forget.

Life’s basics regularly involve challenges, pain, confusion, and loss, too.  Whether in love or in grief, humans generally don’t need much coaching about what to remember.  I’ve never been to a wedding where the vows included an injunction or request of the spouse to, “Remember me.”  I’ve never heard a grieving spouse, family member, or friend at a funeral express a desire to forget the loved one just passed.

In the same way that we are challenged to live a Christian life all week and not just “act like it” in a weekend church gathering, so should we afford ourselves the luxury and comfort of always remembering Jesus … to let him light and direct our ways, and to provide a guardrail of protection and shadings of understanding throughout all corners of our lives.  So many people forget that; I pray so many more would remember.

Remembering Jesus should be a joy; an “all-the-time” joy.  When Paul says “pray continually” (Thessalonians 5:17), it is not a call to inaction on our knees but a call to perpetual remembrance of Jesus in our entire, all-the-time being.  We are with Him, and he is with us: so remember Him.  It is our joy to live with Jesus whatever this broken world might have us endure.  We see glimpses of God’s mirthful Kingdom, sure; but Satan’s worldly mischief and suffering are everywhere, and certainly the world provides daily opportunity to forget Jesus and neglect this great and abiding Christian faith.

How sad that one could ever forget the truth, rest, and peace that exist in Him.

With whatever else in our lives, in communion, let’s remember Jesus.  Always.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) sees marriage and family as an apt parallel for a faithful Christian life.  It’s always a mistake to forget love; always a joy to remember it.

Monday, September 10, 2018

617 - When the Worst Happens


Spirituality Column #617
September 11, 2018
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

When the Worst Happens
By Bob Walters

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you … with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

Perhaps the single most important, useful, always true lesson I’ve learned through several years of Bible study is to read the Old Testament as a precursor to Christ, not as an all-time, works-defining, life-lessons rule book.

The Old Testament explains who God is, who we are, and what the world is.  Its central theme thread is that God is good, Satan is bad, and people are broken.  A key, all-time Bible lesson is to not worry about observing the Sabbath as a day of the week; but of living in Christ as the totality of our peace, strength, and rest from spiritual labor: Jesus is our Sabbath always.  There is plenty of wisdom in the Old Testament, and its wisest proclamation is the coming truth of Christ.  That is what Isaiah is talking about.

Jesus – the New Covenant of faith in Christ – brought into humanity a whole new ball game.  The Old Testament Law wasn’t abolished by Jesus; it was fulfilled in His life, death, and resurrection (Matthew 5:17).  Jesus is what the Old Testament is leading up to; its stories and prophecies explain the predestined truth of the eternal reign of Jesus Christ.  We won’t see the finished product in this lifetime; we must take it on faith.

It’s always a little curious to me that nobody around Jesus actually “got” what He was doing; at least not right away.  The Twelve Disciples were not towers of theological study, but they were Jews who observed the Law.  The Pharisees, knowing prophesy, should have understood but resisted furiously.  The Apostle Paul knew, lived, and was as passionate about the Law as any character in the Bible; yet it took a personal, knock-me-down visit from Jesus for him to accept as truth all that the prophets had said.

Christianity still wanders in and out of New Testament truth.  All this “help” the Old Testament promises is embodied in salvation through Jesus Christ, not God’s acquiescence to our daily human whims or deliverance from our temporal discomforts. I believe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are active in our daily lives, that our relationship with the divine is real, and that prayer “works” as long as we understand and accept that God’s way is ultimately the only way, no matter what we are dealing with at any particular moment in our lives.

I’ve learned that often the most important listener to my prayers – crazy as it sounds – is me.  When I listen to what I’m sharing with Jesus, His truth has a way of overcoming my suppositions.  There are also those fretful times for any of us when we, in suffering panic, simply cry out for God’s help.  Even if we know Jesus is near, we also have to know that God’s righteousness plays the long game we cannot see.

Deliverance, in other words, won’t always be immediate and on our terms.

My brother Joe captains the Lake Superior research vessel Kiyi, which in responding to a help call Aug. 30, rescued a woman miles from land.  She survived a kayaking accident in which her husband and their three young children died.  How does God’s righteousness handle that one?  How – if given the opportunity – do we minister to her?  How does trust in Jesus provide comfort for that woman ever again in her life?

One thing for sure: the Law can’t fix it.  And another: Jesus is grieving, too.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows “Help!” is a great prayer starter.

Monday, September 3, 2018

616 - A Common Problem


Spirituality Column #616
September 4, 2018
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

A Common Problem
By Bob Walters

“The first effect of not believing in God, is that you lose your common sense.” – G.K. Chesterton

Surveying the current-day Christian church landscape one might well argue that common sense appears to be equally optional for believers and non-believers alike.

Like Peter who lost his nerve but not his faith, Christians to this day can be fearfully reluctant to engage the secular onslaught that confronts our relationship with Jesus Christ.  Christians see the surrounding world going mad; the surrounding world madly criticizes Christianity.  It’s a seeming standoff of irreconcilable hypocrisies.

Except … the lone hypocrisy inherent in the global church is not Christ or Christianity; it’s us, the Christians.  We’re the ones who make a mess of things.  Jesus Christ is just fine and Christianity is the single most enduring truth mankind will ever encounter.  The Bible is true.  God and the Holy Spirit know exactly what they are doing.  They have made eternity on the truth and authority of Jesus Christ in all things.

All we have to do is trust it: the reliable truth “that the world is real; that our actions have consequences; that truth itself is something solid and absolute; that we didn’t just make it up.  This common sense perishes except where there is Christianity to preserve it.”  But Satan the Lord of Lies is the secular team captain and a master of manipulating our many human weaknesses: we doubt what is real, lurk in our greed, treat morality as situational, and make up our own rules.  Satan and secularism always seem to be on offense, while Christians always seem be on defense.

The “world is real” quote in the previous paragraph is an apt Chesterton paraphrase written by world-renowned Chesterton scholar Dale Ahlquist in his 2006 book, Common Sense 101: Lessons from G.K. Chesterton.  Chesterton’s 1908 classic Orthodoxy, an intellectual precursor to C.S. Lewis’s later work, is a book I read every couple of years to help me stay sane in my faith amid a world of secular insanity.

With Jesus as my divine guiding light, I believe life’s common-sense basics include men, women, marriage, children (boys and girls), education, morals, industry, community, helping one another, that gender isn’t fluid, that unborn babies are in fact humans created in God’s image, and, you know, being honest.  Oh … and in faith telling others about Jesus with love and compassion.  Plus, I like and appreciate America.

At this time in history, that makes me a bigoted, binary, judgmental homophobe and worse, a Christian.  I’m perceived not as a defender of proven organizing traditions of viable society, but an enemy of the socialist, globalist, and LGBTQ cultural zeitgeist which in ridding itself entirely of God has rid itself entirely of common sense.

That’s why so many things seem to be so backwards … because they are.

As I survey the church landscape – an evangelical scandal here, Catholics in glaring crises there, secularists chortling ”hypocrites!” and “haters!” everywhere  – I know that Jesus Christ, Almighty God, and the Holy Spirit are right where they always are: blocking Satan’s goal line and encouraging me to love my enemies.

It doesn’t seem to make much sense, but it sure enough is the common truth.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) encourages you to look up Chesterton and Ahlquist, especially this excerpt from Common Sense 101: The Lost Art of Common Sense

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